Shofar FTP Archive File: imt/nca/supp-b/nca-sb-02-frank.11

Archive/File: imt/nca/supp-b/nca-sb-02-frank.11
Last-Modified: 1997/11/29
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Supplement B
Frank Claims Ignorance of Concentration Camps
Excerpts from Testimony of Hans Frank, taken at
Nurnberg, Germany, 13 September 1945, afternoon,
by Lt. Col. Thomas S. Hinkel, IGD. Also present:
Siegfired Ramler, Interpreter; Pvt. Clair Van
Vleck, Reporter.
Q. What about other concentration camps besides Maidanek?
What did you know about them?
A. The SS did not construct any bigger concentration camps -
- I am talking about all these years -- of the style of
Dachau, because outside of the General Government in Upper
Selesia, they had a camp in Auschwitz.
Q. Did you know about that camp?
A. I knew that the camp existed there. One passed it on the
train. It was a huge camp. One could always see the barbed
wire when passing on the train, and this was always
considered to be the central camp for the whole eastern
territory.
Q. Is it your statement that the only concentration camp
that you know of in the General Government of Poland was at
Maidanek and that you didn't find that out until after the
Russians had captured it?
A. It had been clear to me that concentration camps had been
erected in the General Government from time to time, but
that they had any mentionable size, it always seemed
improbable to me, because I was always told that the people
from the General Government should be sent to the
concentration camp Auschwitz.
Q. You have been to Lublin, haven't you?
A. Yes.
Q. You have been there numerous times, haven't you?
A. The last time I was there was 1943.
Q. In the course of your travels to Lublin, if you turned
your head to the right or left, you would have seen
Maidanek, wouldn't you?
A. I was in the town. I don't know that. It was outside the
town.
Q. You don't seem to know very much about what happened in
the General Government of Poland, do you?
[Page 1386]
A. That is right.
Q. You were only there five and a half years. You were not
there very long, were you?
A. What has that got to do with it? This is no reason why I
should know everything that happened in the country. It is
quite impossible.
I always tried to release people, officials, that used to be
Poles and had been arrested for any reason.
Q. How many did you get out of Maidanek?
A. I cannot remember. I cannot say that I ever got any
officials out of Maidanek.
Q. Did you ever try to get any out.
A. I can't say with certainty that I ever got anybody out of
Maidanek, not I personally.
Q. Did you ever try to get anybody?
A. No. I have never received any official report that
somebody had gone to Maidanek.
A. How about unofficial reports?
A. I didn't receive any.

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